Year 4, August 19th-22nd, 2019: The Start of the New School Year

Well, it's official.  We started back on our school books today.  I counted parts of our vacation and then Grandparent camp as official school days as well, so we start off the year with 10 out of 180 days already in the bag.  I don't feel out of control or chaotic, but I also am more disorganized/laid back than I was at the start of last year.  There's just a lot of new curriculum and ways of using old curriculum where it's hard to plan exactly how to pace each subject until we get into the material and see how easy or not easy it is to understand and do.  For example, Justin breezed through and understood his physical science book a lot easier than I thought he would.  I'd like him to memorize facts and terms and take the test as a closed book, which requires studying the material, and I'm not sure if he knows how to study or not because it's not something we do often.  But he reassured me that if I help him know what types of things to study, he'll study in his own way like he did for Bible Bowl . Ok, good.  I have a study skills book we could use if necessary, but if you can figure out how you like to study, then good for you.  History with him is going to take some time to get used to.  He skimmed through the chapters but we couldn't really have a deep discussion about it, so he'll reread each section in depth again at a slower pace.  He has to get used to pacing by the amount of time spent on material and not the page numbers because some items will take longer than others to complete. Anyway, I had to keep pulling Justin out of panic mode and tell him that we'll figure things out as we go.

So, here's how the day went.  Abishai and I got up around 8 and Justin got up around 8:30.  We all had breakfast and Justin started his bookwork at 9:10 after his chores for done (except vacuuming because Keturah was still sleeping.)  Then I played with Geotrax with Abishai and went over the sound that the letter "T" makes, etc.  All the while, my "office hours" were open for Justin to ask questions.  He breezed through his schoolwork in under 3hrs.  That's not going to be the norm once we get back into writing and lab reports, etc., but hey, at least he got all of the stuff done today I had hoped for with very little issues.  Abisahi, Justin and I had lunch and then the boys went on electronics while I had office hours with Keturah.  Keturah got up at 11:30am, which means we had a quiet morning because the two kids that are constantly bickering weren't in each other's presence for a good portion of the day. She ate breakfast/lunch and took a shower.  She eventually started on her work around 1:30 by herself but soon got stuck.  Her attitude about school and work hasn't hanged in years. So I tried to patiently work with her until 4pm, which is the latest I will go with office hours.  We accomplished all her subjects except Science and Writing, which both require me, so she was free the rest of the day.

Did the extra sleep ultimately help her attitude?  Perhaps.  Only with a little less arguing.  She woke up with a headache and sore muscles from jumping in KP worship team yesterday., which means she has become lethargic.  So the jury is still out on this experiment yet.  We'll see how she sleeps tonight after having so much sleep last night.  I wonder if it will be harder for her to fall asleep or stay asleep?  So, we'll see.  She didn't want to do her homework, but in the end, she did just fine and remembered lots. She also was confused about my lack of organization or rigidness about pacing out her curriculum.  We did struggle with an oral spelling test.  She would miss whole syllables or rearrange the letters in her mind.  I'll have to try a written test next time.  We were just seeing what words we needed to put on a spelling list and most of them did make that list.  Bummers.  We'll have to work on study methods as well.

Another scheduling tweak we'll need to make is to make sure the boys start electronic time exactly at the same time.  Otherwise Abishai will end up staring at Justin's video game.  But between Keturah not being awake in the morning and then electronic time in the afternoon, Abishai was quite occupied and didn't pose a threat for going through material, so that's a nice balance. Also, during the summer heat, I'm going to get the boys outside before we do school because it's much cooler out first thing in the morning. At least that's the routine for now.  It could change.  This is the week to find out because we don't have any extra trips to make or appointments to keep this week.

But boy am I tired.  I can't seem to focus on anything past 11pm.  I'll have to try to do reading for school earlier than that.  We've got a full week of being AT HOME and then one of our Delaware friends, Michelle, is coming to Indy for something, so we'll meet up with her at some point this weekend.  So not a bad start to the school year.  Now we just have to do it 5 days in a row.  Fun! Just as long as the middles are separated most of the day.  And poor Benaiah has a sunrise to way past sunset schedule now and he's book solid except for Friday nights.  That's nuts! But it's how you become an adult, eh?

Preschoolers trying to do big kid things are too cute!  He also wanted to help cute veggies tonight, so he cut some lettuce with Daddy.

Abishai and I built a huge Geotrax setup while Justin did his work.

I can hear the collective groan of the employees.  Please be kind to them during this.  It's a lot of hard work!

He picked out 11 chicken nuggets and ate 9 of them for lunch!  He's the Hulk he says! Hulk smash!

Why is my driveway empty?  Because Benaiah's truck is in the shop so he has the van and Jared as the car.  Feels strange! Also, I was outside because it was freezing inside!  The hallway where the thermostat won't cool down so the a/c thinks it needs to keeping running.  Therefore, there are places in the house that are really cold.  It took me over 15 minutes to warm up here in the shade.  Abishai joined me though!

Finally it's cool enough to play on the trampoline with Daddy for a few minutes after supper.

So red in the face from all the tickles and giggles and heat from running in circles!  And he bounces a few times and THEN lands on Jared.

Also, I didn't film it because I was afraid of uploading it up to YouTube and getting permanetly kicked off because they are uber picky about content with kids' in it like while they are in the bathtub because of private parts and such.  Anyway, Abishai came up with new dance!  He also didn't have any issue getting soap in his eyes.  He closed his eyes and rinsed off his hair himself!  Such a big boy!

Well, Tuesday was quite a day.  We got up a little later than we needed to, and then I didn't keep track of my time well.  I spent time on my phone when I could have been doing all kinds of other things while I waited for children to do homework, or get up and do homework.  Keturah got up at 11 today, with the same attitude and aches and pains. The a/c has been acting up, so we've had to turn it completely off for an hour or two to give it a rest, and so we get overheated. We did finally have a massive thunderstorm come through (it knocked out power at one of our TV stations!) and that cooled things off significantly right before dinner. But school was a challenge because of my lack of focus.  It's proving as difficult as I feared it was going to be with trying to step up our game into high school level stuff.  I have this high hope and dreams, but I'm at a level mentality where I can't keep up myself. And yet, I don't want to give it up to anyone else either because I do want to improve my own reading and thinking skills that have become mush. Justin has to take notes and study in a different way than he has before, so I'm trying to teach him as we go through material, but I might pull back and go through a different book first that goes over it and then circle back around to the history.  I think we can handle the science.  Sigh.

Keturah is just Keturah, although she seems more aware of the timing of everything.  She said she didn't want to finish homework at 4pm again today, and yet, because of the next thing I will tell you, she spent way too much time on the little work she could do on her own. I did have to take away screen time today because she would not quit getting mad at Abishai for smacking his lips at the table she was trying to do cursive at.  It was lunchtime, life is noisy, and Abishai wasn't doing it on purpose.  He finished two minutes after she stormed out of the room.  Sigh.  Abishai was a bit ancy because I hadn't played with him and it was going on 2pm and I hadn't gone over homework with Justin, or taken a shower, or started with Keturah, so he couldn't have tablet time yet.  And it's been too humid (and hot) to send them outside.  They are drenched in sweat in less than 5 minutes, so it's not worth the battle to get them out there.

What really sank the boat today was that I had to make several phone calls, mostly related to my health stuff.  One was to call the dermatologist because they had the results of the biopsies on my moles.  They wouldn't leave the results directly on my phone messages and here's why.  The two moles on my back were fine.  The one on my arm is: melanoma. Cancer. So they want me to schedule a surgery to remove more of the tissue around it.  I'm going to have a huge scar.  Well, I hit my breaking point for the week/month/summer.  I spent the next 30 minutes during my shower sobbing.  It's not ok. Then I texted Jared, my sister Stefanie, and the rest of my family. I put it out on Facebook and Instagram because that's what I do to ask for prayer and support. Why me, God, why me? I feel like Job of the Bible. I did nothing wrong.  I don't deserve grief after grief, trauma after trauma. It's not the one diagnosis, it's all the diagnoses. In my messages I said, "Today, I weep. Tomorrow, I'm sure my head will take back over.  But right now, don't lecture me" or something like that. Most listened to that today. Certain people didn't and I'm working hard not to respond to them directly. I'm hurting. I'm devastated. I feel like a complete failure. I don't know what to think. So I finished my shower routine, texted, and then went to bed.  I barely got up in time to put supper together, never mind go pick up Benaiah's truck because they finished fixing it today. After supper, I walked the block 2 times to clear my head and enjoy the cooler temps. I also tried not to get hurt by the many cars on that one little stretch of road everyone is using because of the construction of the roundabout. And now I'm spent.

My Instagram post.

A friend posted this link on her Facebook page today.  How timely:
How to Help a Traumatized Friend

Jared's view of the world at sunrise.

A picture sent into the meteorologist about the sunrise this morning.

Jared called this a cloud mountain.

Justin claims he's studying, but I'm not so sure.  Abishai is trying to play quietly, so at least this year, he understands more of what's going on.  He just wants to be in whatever room I or Justin is in.  Justin moved to the living room, and Abishai followed him.  Then I went to play with Abishai.  Poor Justin, he can never get away from us!

Abishai was trying to arrest Justin, and was playing out a storyline, so Justin half listened and half played along as he studied.  It's kind of what a parent does sometimes.

I caught Justin being goofy and hanging off his couch.  In just two years of doing school on this couch and calling it his own little corner, I think Justin has grow 4 inches on every limb. He doesn't fit the couch anymore, but he refuses to switch to the green one.

Before the nasty storm with 70mph winds.  The rain poured for 30 minutes straight and it was so dark we had to turn lights on like it was nighttime.  We didn't lose power like 30,000 residents did though.

Did you know, that when the leaves are turned over showing their undersides on a tree, a storm is coming? Yup! Pretty big deal!

Yikes!

I saw this come through Illinois earlier today, so now it's our turn. And then it was gone.

I had made sure everything was picked up a few days ago when we had another big storm come through, but this one had straightline winds coming straight out from the west and picked up toys that were in the very well protected corner of our deck.  Yikes!

Yup.

First of all, this newscaster looks like a Barbie doll, but I love her dress!  Of all the TV stations in town (I think we have 5 of them) I, for some reason, follow RTV6 for news updates and I get notifications 100's of times a day.  That's how I know how many shootings there has been or that 2 teens brought guns into two separate high schools today.  Anyway, I saw this notification that they were still "broadcasting the news" but via a Facebook live instead of on the normal airwaves because the storm took out their main power and somehow their generators weren't working.  It was fun to watch it for a few minutes because it was so quiet in the studio.  I watch them fumble around without having a prompter to look at or tablets with their stories.  This lady literally had handwritten notes on a legal pad of paper.  Lol.  The weather man used the RTV6 weather app to show the same radar and information we could get from it! No duh the storm has moved out of the area! But how cool that they could still sort of tell the news even without power by using technology like cell phones! Having visited a different TV station last year, I just have a better understanding of how hard these newscasters work and I'm glad they were able to still do their jobs!

Some of the debris from the 70mph I found on my walk tonight. There were a few bigger limbs down in other yards but we still had power and no major damage.  The ditches were FULL again, but we've had several brief, but major downpours in the last week.

Sunset.

See, today was a better day.  It always is. From Annie's "The sun will come up tomorrow" to Scripture's "joy comes in the morning" we all know it to be true, to sleep on it.  I'm still not ok. I didn't think about it too much today.  I felt lethargic all day. But I still did what needed to be done. We had a decent day with school because we started on time and I put my phone down. Because I utlized screen time for Abishai earlier in the day, I decided to take just him to the grocery store in the afternoon while the other kids had their screen time, so he wouldn't watch them play video games. Then all of them had to play amongst themselves after dinner because Jared is babysitting at Rooted like I did last year which means he gets home just in time to read with Abishai and put him in bed.  I think the routine will be to do the grocery shopping with the two youngest on Wednesdays after I drop Justin off at small group. Rooted ends the first week of November, so Jared can go grocery shopping with us after that. Sure, if Justin's small group meeting place is close to Benaiah's, then Benaiah can take him, but I don't think that's going to happen.  Small group doesn't start until after Labor Day anyway.

Abishai was great the grocery store, super chatty, asked questions, picked out our normal groceries, and the Flash car he wanted was still there, so he got it as his prize for being good.  Oh, we did go and visit Daddy first and got some of his wiggles and tickles out since he wouldn't get to see him tonight until bedtime. Benaiah also helped out with the opening night of Rooted on tech team because they do a worship night to start things off.  Then they need less tech people the rest of the nights when they just show a little video and move into their groups right after.  Jared did say that they had 15 kids tonight in the 18mos-3 yr olds because the groups that will met at Shelby St. were also there tonight. But he had plenty of help.  Leah also is helping out in KP and she said there's about 30 kids in her group.  Yikes!

It was still pretty warm this evening, so I didn't make kids go outside, but I hope to be outside more in the evenings and take our walks again soon.  But now I have to cover up more.  And I didn't on the way to the grocery store and it being hot with no a/c in the van, the windows were down and I was kicking myself. I'm also kicking myself for not using sunscreen in the last 5 years. How could I be so stupid? Although, to be honest, no one in my family growing up used much sunscreen and my parents died from other things, and so did my grandparents, and my aunts haven't had skin cancer, so,.....
anyway, I'm trying not to think too much about it and just rest.  I'll do more research as time goes on.  I'm starting on whatever essential oils I have on hand like frankincense and other oils that boost immunity.  It's just that I have so many "conditions" that I just need to bathe in all the oils, all the time.  Trying to find a protocol to follow can be difficult at times, but I'm trying.  It's been a rough, life/health altering summer, that's for sure.

And if one more family member even hints at telling me to put my kids in school, public or private, as the solution to all our problems, I think I'll punch them. I will have to be on death's door before that happens. If I want to reduce stress, it's not going to be through quitting homeschooling. It's more stressful pulling the plug and letting someone else reap the benefits of seeing my kids mature and have serious discussions about worldviews than it is to keep them home. Just don't go theere. I wish I had a relative that championed my homeschooling and didn't just tolerate it. And then that's when I miss my parents the most.  My mom was right by my side from the get go, helping with purchasing curriculum, wanting to teach Benaiah handwriting, etc. And then I think about all the questions I would ask, not just about homeschooling, but how it was truly like in our growing up years.  Why this or that happened.  And what did happen when they were in their 20's? But they aren't here and I will never get those questions answered.  I just have to imagine them championing me on. And being sad at my siblings' divorces and at my health. I also would want to show them how Jared and I turned out after both of them were not really sure about Jared in the beginning. Ok, went on a tangent here, but there ya go.

A little instagram posting...

Yup, that's how I feel about the subject.

It's always fun to make noises into a running fan.  Our house a/c has been struggling to keep up with some of this heat, so we've used fans to keep cool and turn the a/c off for an hour or two to give it a break.

I didn't know The Flash made office visits? Lol.  Gotta do some running around when there's a ton more space and the a/c is on full blast.  I think Daddy needed the break in his day, too.

Soccer tickles!

Yes, I know, I've thought about putting him in a soccer league.  He says he just wants to play when his friends come over for playdates. And I don't like the idea of putting really young kids into expensive time consuming outdoor weather dependent sports. They've played basketball and Keturah did gymnastics, all being the cheapest league we can find. Anyone know of an indoor soccer league?  I know in NH we had one that went through some of the colder months when kids weren't playing hockey and basketball.

Ignore the photos in the background, but I think my husband's interests are as varied as mine.  Swords and Lego planes.

Everything made Abishai giggle tonight.  He was in a giggle mood and when he tried to tell stories, he couldn't through his giggles!

Um, she's not supposed to be in the boys' room, but I'll let it slide since she was actually talking nicely to her brother for once.

Thursday we slept in a bit because Abishai came into our room claiming he was scared of a storm.  We don't sleep well when he's with us because he moves around so much. So he soon was put back to bed.  Jared made it to school just fine, but Benaiah was a few minutes late because he took a different route and there was huge accident that caused a 20-30minute delay!  Whoops!  Thankfully his Bible teacher, the principal, understood and dismissed his tardiness.  He barely made it when the bell run yesterday though.  Whoops!  We all joked that when he started driving himself to school, he be late at least once.  And yup, it would happen in the first week.  We all called it! Oh well, it happens.  Justin was up by 9am, but I didn't get out of bed until closer to 9:30.  Abishai finally rolled out of bed at 9:45!  That's so not like him!  But he hadn't had a nap the day before and he had stayed up late to wait for Daddy to took him in, so, he needed some sleep!  Keturah woke up at 10am.  But despite the late start, we managed to keep the flow going, be efficient with our time, and got it all done by 3pm.  So, it was one of those rare GREAT homeschool days.  Ok, it's not rare, but it feels like it is.  Keturah was still her same self, but she got her work done and didn't spend extra time on the tablet when she used it for an assignment.  I did catch her with her gameboy device though.  She's improving, but not quite out of the sneaking stage yet.  Justin was fine, and Abishai and I read books together and he stayed out of trouble.

Then the scheduler called for my melanoma removal surgery.  It's next Wednesday.  I only have 6 more days with my arm the way it is. I wrote a long post on Facebook that I will insert here:

The removal of the melanoma area on my left arm is next Wednesday at 1pm. I’m still in shock, scared, frustrated, mopey, and a tiny bit mad. I actually take it as a good thing that I’m not furious bc that means I’m able to separate my feelings properly and have them all not manifest as anger. You all know how I like to be au natural everything, including no ear piercings; I just don’t like someone else doing something to my body. Having the mole biopsies in the first place was a shock and I wasn’t prepared for it, and although it’s just scars, it’s just new for me. So this 1 hr long surgery with a huge incision that needs stitches is quite a lot for me to process. Of course it’s first world problems. But having diagnosed anxiety makes the mundane everything a lot worse. I wouldn’t say it’s negatively affecting my relationship with God but it’s now at a grounding halt again. This isn’t just bc of the big C word, cancer, but now I have to add that to all my other medical history and things to watch out for. I’m sure every family has a long list of medical issues, but, mine includes breast cancer, bone cancer, vulvarian cancer, brain tumor, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart issues (my dad had a heart defect), degeneration of the spine, mental issues, etc and that’s just my parents and their parents. You add all my things, anxiety, fibromyalgia, restless legs, hormone imbalance, cysts and polyps, gestational diabetes, food sensitivities to most food groups, and now skin cancer, and the list is massive. So maybe this will help me and you better understand why I’m simply depressed at this point. I’d normally go to all my appointments by myself so Jared doesn’t have to leave the office, but I’ve been making him come with me bc I need his support. Yes the girl who labored alone until the last 10 minutes before her 4th kid was born at home needs support now. So, there it is, another depressing post by me. I’ll let you know when “the joy of the Lord/God is good” part kicks in. Someday it will, I’m sure, but not today. I’m not one of those strong cancer patients telling the nurses and doctors that God’s got it. God bless those who can witness like that. Truly, I envy that you can put your hope in God like that. I’m still struggling but I know I’m 100x better than I was when we moved 3 yrs ago. So there’s hope. There has to be somewhere. Thanks.
(end of Facebook post)

I finally told the other kids, but it was kind of out of anger because they were arguing over something petty.  I don't think they fully grasped what I was saying because I know Justin at least would have had questions and concerns.  Jared also has a cat scan or something of his sinuses at 11, and I'm hoping he's back in time to take me to my appointment.  I told him he really should reschedule because if there's an emergency at the hospital and someone else needs the cat scan, he will be left waiting.  His sinuses have waited 30 years for this, I think they can wait another 30 days. But he doesn't want to.  Actually, we haven't had the space and time to really talk about all of this. There's always some other thing happening in the evening, and I'm not getting my computer stuff done, and he's wanting to go to bed at 10, and I'm never ready at 10, so, yeah, not happy about that. Our schedules have been off by 2 hrs for a few yrs now and I know it's had an impact on our marriage.  That's why Jared finally plugged the plug and cut me off of wifi at 1am every day.  I asked him to.  And once I get used to that, we will scoot it back to 12:30, and so on.  Life is far from perfect, and we just need to keep making baby steps to move forward and make it better.  Even if it's an hour long procedure to cut open my arm and permanently change how it looks so I don't have cancer. Oh that word! I can't get my head around it! I'm so scared, I really am. Don't throw statistics at me.  It's still Cancer. My grandmother died of it, my mother died of it.  Shauna had/has it. But one thing that won't ever change is that I am keeping my kids home and teaching them myself no matter how sick I get and no matter what other people think.  Just don't go there.

Oh my babies!  Look at how cute they are! I showed Abishai this picture and he knew it was Justin but called Keturah, Rosie, because she does look a little bit like the Rosie we know at church.  Now think ahead today when those two cannot be in the same room for half a second without bickering over the color of the wall or the condiment on their sandwhich. Oi! Hormones! I think this picture was taken around the time that my mom had a brain tumor removed, and there was an extra hospital bed in the room or something.  I'm not sure.

There's my current 4 yr old snoozing away the day because he stayed up late last night.

I bought this interesting gel cooling pad that does not need to be frozen.  It draws heat away from your body or something.  And it really books!  Abishai says he needs his own personal one because he's always hot.  Actually, I bought it for Justin because was just complaining about how hot he is in the fireside room.  Thankfully, the weather has cooled off a bit so the a/c isn't running all the time right now.

Demolition Driveway apparently.  If he does anymore, I think I'll be ruining my suspension over the holes!  It's ok, the driveway needs a major overhaul.  But just like in Beech Grove, it's last on the list of repairs. 

Moving tees around and caring for them tops the list of priorities though for this one.  Abishai loves to be with people, even if it's just playing next to them while they are doing something else.  He's just like Socks.  And when it's just you and Abishai, he chatters and asks lots of questions like, "Why do I have to go to school?" and he asked it as a real question, not in a negative tone like the rest of the kids.

This kid follows the beat of his own drum for sure. Hilarious! And Grandma used him as an example to describe Grandpa. Someone asked Leah if Gary is always on overload, and she described Gary as a 4 yr old that keeps going and going and going and then finally crashes, and when he does, he's out for the count. But it doesn't take him long to bounce back.  Leah said that's the first time she described Gary like that, and it's so true!

Oh the glasses, they kill me!

The flamingo glasses, the mistmatched pjs that are too small, the monster truck boots, and the motorcycle trike, he's living the life! Abishai wants a new toy of some kind he saw on YouTube or something, so I told him he needs to earn a lot of money in order to buy it.  At first he asked if Daddy and I have a lot of money, figuring we could buy it for him . But I said, no, you have to earn the money to buy it.  So, I suggested that this weekend we surprise Grandma and Grandpa and clean up the crab apples that have fallen.  I know it's a chore that the kids have done before so I knew he could do it.  He was so excited to talk it over with Grandpa and make a plan. I'm glad he already makes that connection between earning money and spending it on things he wants. Work before play!

Exactly! And a lot of the times, he actually is listening unlike the other kids that say, "yeah ok," and then continue on with whatever they were doing.  What would be do withut our little spitfire who's joyful spirit has gotten us through a lot of hurt.   Can't wallow too deep or long in your grief because little man always needs attention.

The End